


The Nursery

by orphan_account



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Baby, Cute, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-02-28 19:10:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2743892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fitz wakes up to an unusual and frightening lack of problems, and tries to investigate. Set several years in the future when nothing is wrong and everyone is happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Nursery

**Author's Note:**

  * For [littlescienceloves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlescienceloves/gifts).



It was 4:27 when Fitz woke up, according to the time on his bedside clock. It wasn’t any sound or feeling that had woken him, but exactly the opposite. The fact that he had slept for more than three hours without interruption made him feel as though something must be terribly wrong. He rolled over and saw that Jemma’s side of the bed was empty. Fitz grabbed his phone off the bedside table and texted her: _where are you?_ He waited for two and a half minutes before he got the response: _stuck inn nursety. ___  
He frowned at the phone, rubbed his face, and got out of bed. Shuffling into a pair of pink bunny slippers that he insists were a gift (“A gift that he asked for,” Jemma whispers behind him when he does), he heads down the hall and into the nursery.  
The nursery still smelled like fresh paint, a delicate shade of green that made the whole room feel like springtime. On one was a mural of a tropical jungle canopy, full of brightly colored birds and cheerful, cartoony monkeys. Skye had insisted on painting the whole thing, and Fitz would only ever say that the monkeys weren’t anatomically accurate out of her earshot (“Well their tails are too short, and no species I’ve ever heard of has ears that round!” he’d say, receiving a smack on the arm from Jemma as his only response). Still, it was a beautiful mural, and it made a nice backdrop for the rocking chair, where he saw Jemma.  
Jemma held in her arms a tiny, snuggly bundle of blankets that appeared entirely still, save for the soft breathing coming from it. On her lap was her phone, glowing brightly in the dark bedroom and illuminating her face, which appeared contented beneath a layer of exhaustion. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and she was humming very, very softly.  
Fitz tiptoed into the room, the ears of his slippers bobbing with every step, until he stood just behind Jemma’s shoulder. He looked down at the two most perfect girls he had ever seen, smiling at the warmth in his chest that made him forget how tired he was. He put his hand on Jemma’s shoulder, and his lips on her cheek.  
“Are you having a stroke or has sleep deprivation made you text like a teenager?” he mumbled into Jemma’s ear. He felt her cheek tighten against his as she smiled.  
“It was the best I could do without moving too much, so sorry I didn’t use proper punctuation,” she whispered back.  
“It looks like Atty’s asleep,” Fitz murmured, staring down at their daughter’s tiny, perfect face.  
“Every time I put her down, she starts to cry again. I think she gets scared when I’m not here,” Jemma whispered, eyes never leaving the bundle in her arms, warily watching for signs of wakefulness.  
“What’s she got to be scared of? The most terrifying thing in her life is that beanie your mum knit for her-ow!” Fitz was cut off by Jemma delicately reaching her free arm up to flick him in the temple.  
“My mum worked very hard on that beanie, and I think it’s quite nice!” Jemma murmured.  
“Sure, its nice, but it just has too many pompoms for my taste,” Fitz whispered, rubbing his sore temple. “Do you want me to hold her so you can sleep?”  
Jemma shook her head, still resting against Fitz’s shoulder. “No, I’m worried I’d wake her by moving too much. Just go back to sleep, dear.” But Fitz could see how tired she was, how badly she wanted to be back in their bedroom together to just relax for a little while. Jemma had been working so hard to take care of their baby – Fitz had too, but there was a fierce dedication to the way Jemma approached her new role as a mother. She seemed fixated on making sure that she was always there for Atty, no matter how exhausted she was.  
Fitz straightened up, but let his hands rest on her shoulders as he began to rub her tired shoulders. She sighed happily, letting her head fall back a bit to rest against Fitz’s stomach. He ran his thumbs in small circles along her spine, and she sat up in the chair, arching her back as he worked out the knots there. His hands moved back up until his fingers were just brushing the ends of her hair, hanging loose and messy at her shoulders. He ran his fingers through it, starting at the top and working his way down, loosening the tangles and smoothing the bumps.  
“Fitz, what are you doing?” She tilted her head, but not too much. He could tell that even if she was worried that he would muck up her hair worse than it was, she didn’t want him to stop playing with her hair.  
“Shh, just relax.” He tried to sound soothing, but he felt himself slip into his “focus voice,” as Jemma calls it, where his syllables clip off just a bit at the end of each word. Finished detangling her hair, he took a small section from the top of her head and began to braid, very slowly and methodically, adding sections in as he went.  
Fitz saw Jemma’s eyes close and her face relax, losing the resigned tension that comes with forced wakefulness. He knew she wasn’t asleep, so he kept braiding her hair, fingers moving with the same delicate precision he’d learned from years of building fragile pieces of technology. When he’d finished the braid, he reached down to Jemma’s wrist and pulled off the spare hair tie she always kept there, twisting it around the end of the braid. He let go of her hair, put his hands back on her shoulders, and leaned down to kiss her cheek.  
“When did you learn to braid hair?” Jemma asked, reaching up to feel her head. The braid felt perfect, not a hair out of place.  
“I had Skye teach me a few weeks back. I figured I should know how since there are two women in my life now.” He smiled, thinking about how excited Skye had been to help him learn, and how that excitement had turned into dismay as Skye became a very uncomfortable guinea pig. Fitz had altogether too strong a grip at first, as the small bald patch on Skye’s head would attest for weeks to come.  
Fitz bent in front of the rocking chair, pulling Atty from Jemma’s arms and taking great care with her head. She was still so tiny, at just three weeks old. Fitz placed her into the crib and waited before removing his hands. When she didn’t stir, he smiled and felt his shoulders slump with relief. Still smiling, he bent to scoop up his extremely drowsy Simmons, who was just barely conscious enough to peer over the crib edge to see that Atty was asleep. He carried her out of the nursery, leaving the door open just a crack, and brought her down the hall into their bedroom.  
It was 4:53 when Fitz tucked Jemma into bed, according to his bedside clock. He crawled in beside her, stroking her forehead with his thumb and placing on it one more kiss. As he would remember it, it was one of the best nights of his life.


End file.
